Guppies are far from picky eaters due to their nature of consuming almost anything offered to them. However, you have to feed your guppies a balanced and nutritious diet to bring the best color out of them and keep them healthy. Apart from the food, water parameters are a much more important factor to keep your guppies healthy. But in this guide, we will focus on what food you should feed to your lovely little creatures.
So What Do Guppies Eat?
As I mentioned earlier, guppies ARE NOT PICKY EATERS at all. They will eat anything they can find. Eg. Their own babies, smaller fish fry, baby shrimps, algae, and even dirt sometimes! So if your aquarium is cycled and with plants, you can even go with an entire week of not feeding your guppies at all. Given their wide food spectrum, you should feed them a diverse range of food to make sure your fish are getting all the vitamins. For example, you can feed them:
- Fish pellets/ Tropical fish flakes. (Small pellets)
- Frozen/ live foods such as brine shrimp, bloodworms, and mosquito larvae.
- Boiled egg yolk.
- Small bit of garlic, boiled and mashed
Guppies being an omnivorous species are consume anything and everything that fits in their mouth. The more variaty of food you feed them, the healthier, and prettier they will become!
How should I feed my guppies?
Guppies have very interesting digestive systems, they can typically digest everything in about 2 hours (Adults). That means, technically, if you have the time, you can feed them every 2 hours. This is really good for growing their size and make them more active, this is a method we use ourself here to raise them up faster. But this also comes with its own tradeoffs: more water changes, more work feeding them.
The ideal recommended feeding cycle for a home aquarium is twice a day, once in the morning and once in the afternoon. When feeding guppies, simply sprinkle a small pinch of food onto the water surface. Healthy guppies will be attracted immediately and begin eating right away.
Only feed an amount they can fully finish within about 30 seconds. This helps keep the water clean and prevents waste from building up in the tank. If you notice fish food still floating after 2 minutes, that is a clear sign you are overfeeding.
Overfeeding is extremely dangerous for guppies. Excess food quickly breaks down, pollutes the water, and can cause sudden ammonia spikes. In severe cases, fish can become stressed or even die overnight due to poor water quality. When in doubt, always feed less—guppies do much better with slightly underfeeding than overfeeding.
If you are feeding guppy Fry, you crush down adult guppy food into smaller pieces and feed it to your Fry. For the best growth rate and health of guppy fry, we typically feed them Live Dapnia or Baby Brine Shrimp. They have the highest protein amount comparing to all other food. Also give them some plants as hiding spots to keep them calm.
When to start feeding my fish after receiving a fish shipment?
If you are receiving a shipment of guppies from us or other places. DO NOT FEED on the day of arrival, guppies will be stressed and tired after a long trip. Dim the lights and let them rest. Start feeding a small amount starting next day in the morning. Guppies are so hardy that they can literally go for a week without eat anything, so there are no need to worry that your fish will be starving after 2 days of not eating.
Also do avoid feeding them a large amount of food at one time, It is way healthier to feed them small amount over a longer period time.